In laws playing it fast and loose with refrigeration - who is right?

[spatchcock]

Went to stay with the in laws this weekend. Got up on Saturday morning and went to have some toast with jam. MIL points me towards the cupboard. In the cupboard there are four pots of jam - three are mouldy and one has just been opened. I cleared out the green jams and after using the unmouldy one went to put it back in the fridge but MIL says 'Oh no - it goes in the cupboard.' Right, ok... not going to argue, not my house or my jam.

At midday, FIL comes back with the shopping. Everything gets tidied away except for a joint of pork, which gets left on the side. A few hours later MIL and I are pottering about in the kitchen and I see the pork is still out and ask if I should put it away. "Oh I've got it, don't worry," MIL says. She puts it in the (unlit) oven in preparation for the Sunday roast.

I go to bed thinking about the pork, imagining the bacteria multiplying endlessly and wondering if any of it could possibly harm my incubating (31-week) PFB. My own mother is absolutely fastidious about refrigeration to the point of obsessive. A ten minute trip to the supermarket necessitates several chilly bins and a game plan. Bacteria is Satan and Mum is a missionary of hygiene. I thought I was nothing like her (I eat things off the floor), but something has obviously rubbed off on me because it takes me a while to get to sleep.

The next day the oven is turned on at midday - 24 unrefrigerated hours after the pork first made its appearance in the kitchen.

I ate it - MIL cooked the shit out of it so any bacteria (along with any nutrients) were probably killed off. MIL has also raised three strapping sons. One of them, my DP, says he can't remember any incidents of food poisoning, and that meat has always been treated this way in his house.

I find this bizarre. It seems completely abnormal to me to leave meat lying around for a whole day in warm spring temperatures but DP thinks I'm overreacting.

So who is being unreasonable? Me with my bacterial awareness or MIL with her germy breeding grounds?

"Playing it fast and loose" makes it sound far more exciting!

Not every house had a cellar though Spatch, and as I and the last poster said, an oven is sealed, and will not reach room temperature (in the same way once the door is closed when it is hot, the heat stays inside too).

A large joint of meat would take quite a while to reach room temperature, and even then would be absolutely fine so long as nothing was flying around to land on it, for quite a few hours longer, so it would be perfectly safe after 24 hours, honestly.

The jam will only go mouldy if butter gets in it (ie from using a buttery knife instead of a clean spoon).

This is a bug bare of mine and I have been known to shout nnnnooooo as I dive in slow motion towards guests who dare try it.

Don't butchers still leave meat out all day? I seem to remember going to butchers as a child and there were half animals hanging up!!

Don't eat meat so not an expert though...

jam mosty goes mouldy not because its not in the fridge but because it has been contaninated by butter bread/toast crumbs if an dedicated jam spoon is used it will keep 2-3 months opened without going mouldy or winey ( when it bubbles and starts to ferment

OMG, your MIL has got some foul habits wrt food storage! I know the jam thing gets debated sometimes even though the correct thing is obviously to put it in the fridge just like it says on the side of the jar, but the meat thing is just . Think you were brave to eat it tbh - I wouldn't have anything except a cup of black tea in a house like that.

"Of course, any leftovers do need to go in the fridge."

Oh yes, leftovers... I forgot to say that at Christmas MIL cooks the turkey (don't even want to think about the 'preparation' for that, although it's obviously colder at Christmas) and then leaves the leftovers in the dining room until they are gone. BUT covered with a tea towel.

Jam itself won't go mouldy, but if someone puts a buttery knife into it [vom emoticon], the butter will go off in the jam and turn mouldy - and should be binned.

Some of you lot would be useless at camping!

I'm loving the expertise on this thread re: jam mould! I think I might have been convinced that it's ok to put it in the cupboard now but I'm going to have to stick to my guns re: the meat.

Sorry to disappoint, Trillian.

Crikey! You lot do know that the human race evolved from living in caves and there was no electricity, dont you??!! Jam is a PRESERVE. It is preserved fruit! It doesnt need to go in the fridge. Cheese is milk which is already off, and it comes from a warm cow. Pork pies were invented because there were no fridges! Your MIL cooked that pork for a considerable amount of time, at a high temperature. Any bacteria in it was destroyed. And what the hell is wrong with raw peeled veg sitting out? it was raw and sitting out before it was peeled. ITS VEG!!
FFS. get a grip!

squeaky - I was a geeky girl guide who did loads of camping! We used a safe to store cold food, hung up in a tree, or stuck the food in the river.

@ Saggy!!!

"You lot do know that the human race evolved from living in caves and there was no electricity, dont you??!!"

Yes but didn't all those guys live till they were about 30 and then drop dead from years of accumulated bacteria?

I mean hardcore camping

LOL at "BUT covered with a teatowel"!

I'm from NZ - it was always hardcore! I can shit in the woods while shooting a possum between the eyes.

I actually felt a bit sick reading that OP. I'm pretty fussy about food hygeine regarding meat/fish. My mantra is "If in doubt, sling it out". Drives my DP mad as he says I waste loads. I'd rather waste it by binning it than waste it by puking it down the loo for days on end. Especially while I'm pregnant.

Loving fast and loose as well :o

I am always a bit bemused by folk who throw things in the bin on the day the label says it should be eaten by.. it doesnt magically rot at midnight you know!

Butchers and fishmongers dont put dates on the food they sell, they just put it into a bag and you have to use your own common sense to tell if it is off or not.

I have used veg that has been weeks if not months past its "best before" date. There is nothing wrong with it.

My ILs live in Africa and buy meat from markets where it is not kept cold at all. You can smell the meaty smell 100 yards away, and I'm always so so grateful that I've been veggie for the last 15 years and don't have to eat it (although it does make them think I'm crazy ) They don't seem to get ill all that often, though.

They, meaning both sets of parents are all alive and therefore I guess both methods work

I think you have the same MIL as me, OP. My PILs fridge is scarier and more dangerous than Afganistan.

What people forget is that many of the foods we eat, and refrigerate were invented to prolong the life of foods before fridges were invented. Jam, cheese, bacon, salami, pork pies, pickles and chutneys, sausages, pate, kippers.

I have seen my MIL eat cream cheese from a tub that had a thick black hairy beard growing from it, and when I did this she just tutted, and pushed to beardy bit to one side and said 'Oh alright, I'll just eat the bit on the other side of the pot then, if it'll stop you fretting.'